‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ Could Be the First Fox Film Released By Disney

With Disney and Fox soon to join forces like the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy when Thanos comes to town looking for sparkly magic gems, it must be determined what to do with all of the Fox movies that will now come under the Disney umbrella. Previously, Fox may have planned to release some of these films against Disney product; after all, they used to be competitors.

Although the deal is not fully complete yet, Fox has already started shifting around its release schedule, pushing potential competition away from big Disney releases. Fox’s Death on the Nile, for example (a sequel to the recent Murder on the Orient Express), was supposed to come out on December 20, 2019. But Star Wars: Episode IX opens on that date. Now death won’t come to the Nile until the fall of 2020.

And the Hollywood Reporternotes that we’re getting closer to the point where all of “Fox’s movies will be controlled by Disney, which will take over the marketing, promotion, and distribution for those titles. In a weird twist of fate, Dark Phoenix — the latest and possibly final X-Men movie in its own separate universe apart from Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe — may wind up being the first official Disney Fox film:

Fox's X-Men spinoff Dark Phoenixcould be the first film released by Disney. Its release was recently pushed from February to June 7, a date that doesn't conflict with any movie from Disney.

After that: Who knows? Disney will also get from Fox a basically finished New Mutants movie that has already undergone numerous reshoots and shifts of release dates. (It’s now scheduled for early August.) Neither of these movies will fit into the carefully constructed MCU, and it’s hard to imagine Disney letting that situation go on a single second longer than it contractually needs to. It’s going to be a very interesting couple of months in Hollywood.